Tossing and Turning

For some reason, I could not get comfortable last night. My pillows were lumpy, my blankets were too heavy, the fan was too loud and my brain would not shut up. Everyone has an edge of sanity, and last night, I was firmly pushed up to that edge to stare into the abyss.

I don't like worrying. I don't enjoy making contingency plans, budgets, or even shopping lists. It all reminds me that I'm a starving artist in college and that my entire future is resting on my ability to exploit my imagination.

Surely I can take the easy way out. I can get a steady job in an office somewhere, put on the docile and submissive face, and keep my griping mouth shut. After all, my inability to sit still is the only reason I ever leave a job.

Boredom sets in and I find myself staging epic Kurosawa-style samurai battles in whatever building I happen to be working in. A wall explodes, mounted cavalry pour through the opening, and my coworkers, like helpless peasants, are cut down like so much dead grass. My boss is brought to task by the samurai like any abusive fuedal lord, and like the great Toshiro Mifune, I possess the ability to save his wretched soul, or stand aside and the tide of justice wash away the perversions of honor that have gripped these lands.

I made the mistake of telling my roommates about a commission I had made on a side project. Since I pay my rent in two chunks, one of them always falls after rent is due. Why rent is due on the fifteenth and not on the first is beyond me, but suffice it to say, my roommates leapt on the prospect of money as soon as my stupid mouth had mentioned I would have some.

The very idea of spending this commission on rent is appalling. It's bad enough that I'll be spending it on mundane things like fixing my truck, paying off old bills, and buying myself shoes, but to think that I need to spend any of it as if it were a "regular" paycheck is a slap in the face. I know it's just a matter of time before I'm completely caught up and all my side projects are nothing but profit, but the hungry look in my roommate's eyes was unsettling enough to wake up The Accountant.

The Accountant is the part of my personality that is always fighting with The Muse. Most of the time we can put The Accountant in a sleeper-hold and choke him back to sleep, but last night, his teeth, filed sharp as daggers, chewed through the arms of my Muse and spat fat meaty chunks of arm in my face.

Now I have to summon the Kraken and Cthulu to take care of the accountant, and that's going to take all day. Moreover, it doesn't help that Cthulu and The Accountant are related by marriage. This means I have to find a way to get Cthulu's wife, who is The Accountant's sister, off Cthulu's back for helping me out. Maybe some dead frogs or fish... I dunno. It's such a headache. I just wanted to get some sleep.

Zelda Forever

Okay. I'm tired. ^__^ I was up until three am playing Twilight Princess with Nicholarse. It started off very innocuous- "Hey, mate, you wanna come up for a pint?" (We had just watched Shawn of the Dead the week before, so every place we go to is still the Winchester.)

"Awright," I said. We opened up some brews and sat down in front of the Wii.

"Here's the plan," Nick suggested. "We play a single quest, then we watch an episode of Robot Chicken, Season Two."

Ten hours and no beers later, we crawled out of the Arbiter's Ruins in the desert with the souls of twenty Poes en tow. In that time, we had rocked up a giant fish, a crafty mage that shifted shadows, sixteen normal and four super Poes, a giant skully fiend with a bit of sword in his dome; gained four heart containers, three pieces of heart; and we even learned all but two of the missing sword arts from a golden wolf.

I'm still playing Wind Waker, so I was a little apprehensive about starting Twilight Princess. I know the stories aren't contiguous but I really wanted to start Twilight from the beginning. From what I played last night, however, I'm glad I didn't commit to such foolishness.

The nunchuk controls were a bit unwieldy at first- I was swinging my sword around in ridiculous arcs that were completely unnecessary. Once I got "into the swing of things," (lol pun lol) I was in it to win it. Although bombs, swords arts, and the Clawshot are all sorts of wicked fun, I spent as much time as possible as the wolf, in sense mode. I hunted me some Poes for the win.

Zelda games are deep and immersing, and although you don't have the staggering array of swords and accessories you find in Final Fantasy and Elder Scrolls, it's still a blast. Who needs anything more than the silver shhhhiiiing! of a fully powered Master Sword anyway?

Since Twilight is the only Zelda that Nicholarse has played, it was fun clue-ing him into the little secrets here and there. "Jump down there, you'll be safe." "Hit the boss twice and switch tactics." "BLUE POTION!!!" Stuff. Anyway, I'm going to go home to night, put a huge dent in Wind Waker, and I'll start saving my pennies for a Wii.

Blog In The Afternoon

So I've decided that I shouldn't use the fact that it is no longer morning to not post. At least not all the time. My goal was to blog in the mornings, of course, but what about these wonderful weekends I've been getting lately?

It's been my first chance in forever to sleep in, and the last thing I want to do when I wake up at noon is make the trip into the living room where my scornful roommates are waiting to remind me how lazy I am while I log into Blogger and try to be literate.

Luckily for me, they're out of town this weekend, so I've been left here to reflect on the week in general and lament the great opportunities I've had for Morning Blogs this week but didn't act on.

Today, for example, I woke from a particularly interesting dream and instead of writing it down, I went to a barbecue. The barbecue was supposed to happen yesterday, but I guess too many people were watching football and getting drunk to want to cook.

In any case, it was nice that the meat had an extra day to marinate, and that certain people still had beer and football to keep them occupied. Well, perhaps a little too occupied.


This is what happens when the game is more important than the food. ^__^ I sent a picture to my email and informed Nick that it was going directly into the blog. Which is why I'm here, of course, posting a blog in the middle of a football party.

For now, I think it's best to get back to the fried chicken. Or what's left of it.

Until the morning... or afternoon....